


12 Levels Down

by JediDryad



Series: February Fluff: 28 Ways Luke and Mara Get it Together at last. [18]
Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: Breaking up is hard to do, Drowning one's sorrows, F/M, Oral Sex, Public Sex, alcohol use, february fluff, in pheeno veritas, perhaps not entirely responsible alcohol use, probably should have been the title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:42:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29416587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JediDryad/pseuds/JediDryad
Summary: A depressed, broken-hearted Luke visits a bar deep under the Coruscant surface to drown his sorrows alone. Mara runs into him and decides to offer to share his misery for awhile. Over shots of bootleg liquor, they sort a few things out.
Relationships: Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker
Series: February Fluff: 28 Ways Luke and Mara Get it Together at last. [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2129439
Comments: 11
Kudos: 29
Collections: Luke Deserves All The Blowjobs





	12 Levels Down

She sensed him the minute she walked through the door, and she wondered what the kriff Jedi Master Luke Skywalker was doing 12 levels down, in a dive generally frequented by the lost and hopeless: a group she felt she belonged to for this evening at least. 

Scanning the sparse crowd, she finally caught sight of him at a small booth in an extraordinarily dark alcove that seemed to be trapping the ever present smoke of a dozen illicit stimulants. He was wearing a cloak with the hood drawn so low she could only see he was unshaven. If she couldn’t sense him with the Force, she’d never have recognized him at all.

That seemed to be his plan. It was a plan she could support.

She hitched for a moment on her way to the bar. What was that saying about sharing misery?

Maybe.

Refusing to examine the impulse, she placed her order and then brought her tray with her as she approached the brooding jedi.

“Mara.” His acknowledgement was flat, but her name seemed to leave a bad taste in his mouth.

“What’s wrong, Skywalker?” 

He tugged his hood back just far enough to look her in the eye. His smile was unpleasant, blue eyes clouded with misery.

“Whatever makes you think something is wrong?”

Point for the jedi.

She plunked her tray unceremoniously on the table in front of him with enough force to make the 10 small glasses rattle against one another.

“Because no one here is happy. Happy beings don’t spend their evening 12 layers below the surface, in the darkest, smokiest corner of a place where they spray the blood off the tables into a central drain at the end of every night.”

His expression was defiant.

“What are you doing here then?” 

“I never claimed to be happy. I shouldn’t be happy and we all know why.”

Something twitched in his cheek then, but he appeared not to notice.

“What’s this?” He gestured at the tray.

“Pheeno.” 

She took the opening and sat next to him on the threadbare cushioned bench.

“Moong makes it in the back,” she gestured to the Besalisk behind the counter. “He says it’s from Ojom like him. I think he’s lying, but it’s cheap and strong.”

Luke pulled his hood off as she handed him a small shot glass.

“Past the tongue” she recommended as she raised her portion in a grim approximation of a toast before throwing it back.

It burned all the way down as it always had. 

She watched Luke shiver and grimace.

“Past the tongue, I said”, she reminded him tartly.

He grimaced, “Reminds me of the stuff Hobbie and Janson cooked up in a broken A wing on Hoth.”

“Did it keep you warm?”

“Not exactly.” I didn’t notice the cold though.

She chuckled grimly and handed him a second shot. 

“Close enough.”

They both shuddered through that one but whether it was the taste or memories, it was unclear.

“Tough starting a business?” Luke asked, apparently deciding to make her go first, “or is something else driving your unhappiness?”

His words were harsher than usual. He twisted a third shot around on the table in front of him and watching condensation circles form on the pitted and gouged duraplast.

She shrugged wondering just how much the Pheeno might convince her to share.

“Karrde says it’s just growing pains.”

“Tough finding customers?”

“Finding them. Keeping them. Collecting their money.”

She leaned back in her seat and dropped her head against the wall.

“I don’t know if it will work out.”

That was something she hadn’t told anyone else. She would have to be careful, she reminded herself, it was a bad idea to get too invested in telling Luke things.

He nodded, and, for once, he didn’t offer any of his obnoxious optimism or baseless reassurances. He simply handed her another glass of Pheeno.

“They say,” she informed him as he picked up his own, “That the truth comes out after the third Pheeno shot.”

He raised an eyebrow in what she knew was a dare, and downed his before she could get hers to her lips.

“Karrde thinks it’s growing pains,” he quoted her as she could feel the alcohol evaporating from her tongue.

“What do you think it is?”

He was taking that superstition seriously.

“I don’t think they trust me.”

“They’d be crazy not to.” His statement was reflexive and made her feel lighter.

“How is it you always seem to forget that I was an Imperial assassin?”

“Is that why you think they don’t trust you?”

“I’m sure that’s why you don’t.”

He looked at her strangely and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“You think I don’t trust you?”

And the proverbial fate of the third shot of Pheeno was upon her.

“I used to threaten to kill you.”

“I knew you wouldn’t.” He was pleased with his contrariness.

“The rest of the galaxy had reason to wonder.”

“You weren’t threatening to kill them.”

She smiled wanly and he leaned a bit closer.

“I trust you, Mara.” he slurred a bit, “Always did. I must. I’m sitting here drinking slow acting poison with you, and it’s actually making me feel better.”

“I trust you,” he murmured again, half to himself this time. Mara could barely hear him as the bar grew noisier.

“I’m the one who can’t be trusted.” he muttered bitterly, “can’t be trusted to leave well enough alone.”

A snort of laughter burst out of Mara before she could stop it.

“Anyone who expects that, doesn’t know you very well.”

His lips curled up briefly and then he seemed to wilt next to her.

“I shouldn’t have gone after her,” He said morosely, “I should have just let her leave.”

Mara didn’t ask who. She knew, just as she’d been fairly certain this was precisely why Luke was here tonight.

“If you hadn’t though you might regret that too, always wondering what would have happened if you’d tried, what you might have had.”

She could tell he was looking at her strangely but didn’t know what to say. If he didn’t know, it was better that way.

“No.” he shook his head. “I knew what Callista and I had - and what we didn’t have. I wanted what we had to be enough. I thought that if I said it often enough, if I promised the right way, it would be.”

He leaned forward and started twisting the next full glass contemplatively.

“It wasn’t. It was never going to be. She’d lost too much. I couldn’t get it back for her, and I couldn’t convince her it didn’t matter”

He sighed and ran his hands through his hair restlessly, leaving it a spiked staticky mess on his head.

“It did matter. She was right. We wouldn’t have been happy together. Not like that.”

He looked over at Mara bleakly, shame evident on his face.

“I knew it. I shouldn’t have chased her, made it harder on her.”

“It wasn’t fair of me.”

“It hurts to lose someone.”

“No.” he spoke sharply.

“That’s the problem. I don’t mind that she’s gone. We weren’t happy. She deserves to be happy.”

“She didn’t deserve what I did.”

Mara pulled her legs up onto the bench and leaned a shoulder against him.

“It probably wasn’t what she needed. Still, I doubt she was surprised by it. I can’t imagine you doing anything else.”

“I feel empty. I just know she won’t fill the space.”

“Well, can’t say I have much advice for you there, Skywalker. Relationships are not my area of expertise.”

“Why is that anyway?”

Mara was puzzled and knew it showed on her face.

“You’re beautiful, smart. Why aren’t you always introducing me to your latest arm candy?”

“You forget that I’m a former assassin for the Empire. Murdering in the name of an evil dictator is somewhat damaging to the reputation.”

She sighed and tilted her head back against the cold wall.

“I don’t blame them.”

“They’re ridiculous. They just don’t know you like I do.”

She snapped around to look at him and found his face inches from hers. She could smell the Pheeno on his breath and she was sure he could smell it on hers. Her eyes were drawn to his lips and she wondered how they’d feel against her skin.

She looked away.

They sat in silence for a minute, shoulder to shoulder, watching the door open and close as more beings filled the spaces around them.

“Mara?” he murmured, She turned towards his voice and found his lips unexpectedly close to hers again, “What happens after a fourth Pheeno?”

She couldn’t pull her eyes away from the shape of his mouth.

“I dunno. I never used to have more than two.”

His chuckle was husky in her ear.

“Of course not,” he murmured, “and you’ve had three now so it must be true.”

He was pressed against her now, speaking directly into her ear in order to be heard amid the growing din, the warmth of his body seeping through her clothing.

“Shall we find out?”

She nodded, feeling slightly lightheaded as she grabbed the glass he’d placed in front of her.

“Oya!” he offered and they linked arms as they tipped the harsh alcohol back once again.

She had expected each shot to go down easier, but the fourth burned as much as the first had.

The room was definitely getting fuzzier, Mara observed as she set the empty shot glass on the table in front of her with a bit of difficulty. She found it hard to maintain her focus on much of anything other than the feel of Luke still pressed against her side.

The place was loud. She could hear snippets of over a dozen languages but could barely see more than shadows through the smoke.

Luke was also watching the room, his eyes unreadable.

“Still empty. Cold.”

It was so silly that he thought that way. Cold and empty were the opposite of who he was. She wondered if she could stop him from feeling that way, even for a moment.

“Not empty.” she whispered in his ear. She had no idea if he heard her.

On impulse, she leaned in and rested a hand against his chest. She could feel his heart beating under the rough fabric of his tunic. He didn’t pull away, and she suddenly realized he wouldn’t. 

She’d always expected him to. It had always seemed unbelievable that he of the bright optimism he would ever sit in the darkness with her, but here he was.

And sad, empty and lonely as he might feel, he wasn’t hiding those things from her. He’d shared his loss, the shame of hanging on when he should have set himself free.

He had said he didn't miss Callista, and the truth in his words caused her breath to catch in her throat.

She leaned in at that moment, hand still on his chest and brushed her lips against his.

The kiss was a little clumsy, sloppier than it might otherwise have been. Lips and tongues that felt larger than they were made for less precision, but no less satisfaction.

He responded promptly sliding his arms loosely around her as though he were afraid she would dart away if he tried to hold too tight. She wondered how long she’d given him that impression.

She certainly wasn’t leaving. She didn’t want to stop kissing him. She didn’t want to stop touching him. She could feel him pressed against her. She could sense him struggle with resignation to a solitude he didn’t really want even as his tongue tangled with hers.

It was maddening. He deserved as much joy and connection and pleasure as any other being. He deserved it more than she did.

He made a noise against her lips that sounded like a growl of disagreement and she wondered if he could hear her thoughts.

She let her hand drift down from his chest into his lap. He arched into her palm with a moan when she brushed across the bulge straining against his zipper. Clearly that still worked after the fourth Pheeno.

“It’s smoky in here,” she breathed in his ear as she ran her tongue around the edge of the cartilage. “Private.”

And then, almost as though she were falling, she slid off the bench to land on her knees in front of him.

She wondered if it were the alcohol that made this feel like a dream, or maybe it was the number of times she’d imagined being with Luke this way: the times she’d dreamed his gasp as she released him from his clothing, the times she’d imagined how he’d feel in her hands, how he’d taste on her tongue.

She closed her mouth around him, hot and already weeping. She licked at his length, enjoying the tang on her tongue as she tasted all of him. He felt good in her mouth and when Luke’s hands tangled in her hair as he thrust into her involuntarily, she knew her mouth felt good on him too.

She moved quickly knowing that despite the dark corner and the dingy air, they were still in a public place. Deftly she altered her speed and sucking pattern to maximize his anticipation, softly she swirled her tongue and catalogued extra sensitive spots that made Luke’s fingers tighten in her hair.

It did not take long before he let go. She could sense a mental shift with his release.

She swallowed as best she could, cleaning him with her tongue until the spasms subsided and his hands relaxed in her hair.

Pulling back on her heels, Mara zipped him in again and crawled up to sit next to him only to find herself promptly stretched out across the bench as Luke claimed her lips with a feverish fervour so different from the fuzzy brained kisses of a few minutes before. This was direct, hot, and unmistakably possessive.

And when she broke to suck in a long breath, he pulled her back up to seating position and plundered her lips again, arms wrapped around her that seemed to declare he would never let go.

“Do you want the last Pheeno?” he asked as he stroked his fingers tenderly down her face, and she realized he would have done this years ago had she let him.

“No”

She waved it off dismissively

That stuff tastes terrible." 

He broke into a grin.

“I bet you taste better.”

She smiled.

“Is that an offer?”

“Oh, most definitely.”

They left the last round on the table and escaped from the misery-filled bar arm in arm, much too happy to hang out in a smoky dive 12 levels down. Those places were for the lost and hopeless.


End file.
